"We're Not Going to Negotiate Anymore"

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

18 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

The "trade deficit" is not the problem.  In a trade deficit environment, the Chinese are sending the US a slew of hard goods, and in exchange what the Chinese get are little pieces of paper with pictures of dead Presidents on them.  Americans benefit from "trade deficits."

The real problem is that Americans are put out of work, and the money velocity inside the USA suffers from that and the shuttered US factories.  You can have all the trade deficits you want as long as it is not whacking US factories and employment; if they are at full capacity, purchasing additional goods from abroad simply elevates the US standard of living.  Unfortunately, those Chinese manufactures directly compete with US manufactures, and it is that direct substitution of goods that is the root of the problem. 

Just for example, I invite you to go into any hand-tool sales outlet, such as "National Tools," and look at a set of wrenches, the kind you use to go work on your car or truck.  Stamped on that big 7/8'inch combination wrench will be the word  "CHINA".   See, that big wrench is not being forged in the USA.  That US factory got shut down, and its workers are on the street, doing opioids instead of supporting their families.  And that, my friends, is the problem. For that, there is only one solution:  tariffs and quotas.  Nothing else works. 

Of course, that wrench is a piece of junk and likely is not 7/8 of an inch between the jaws!

The fact is that the Chinese manufacture junk. Yes, things like these wrenches sell to folks who just have the odd job around the house, but real tradesmen or craftsmen will not touch Chinese tools and equipment.

Out in the drilling arena I cannot tell you how many times my clients decided to 'go cheap' with Chinese equipment only to have it fail in weeks.

There is little real QA/QC in China. I was forced to have a drilling spool manufactured in China. I used a third party Chinese inspector to confirn that it was fit for purpose. When it arrived in Kurdistan it was riddled with radial cracks - useless.

You order two identical mud pumps from China...you cannot interchange parts due to shoddy machining...and on and on.

China sells by artificially lowering the cost/dumping. They can do this due to low cost, low skilled labor. As China develops a middle class, they will demand higher wages, time off, pension plans, etc... and this advantage will disappear.

The Chinese economy is a house of cards.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

2 hours ago, Dmitry Bedin said:

Tom with all respect, US dont have democracy as it defined in dictionary. But easyer to be fixed in propaganda like this picture than find an elefant in your eye.

Thats funny, US dont even elect the president, you just vote for you are being fed. Two party only, binar democracy, yes. Lol. 

Your fixation on others countryes while we talking here only about trade deal apic fail makes you far away to be the brightest crayon in the box.

And you are obviously the 'sharpest knife in the drawer'.

Technically the US is a 'republic', but let's not split hairs.

There are more than two parties in the US, it is simply that by far the two largest parties are the Democrats and the Republicans. Don't believe me? Get a copy of the ballot and read it.

You are starting to sound as if you have the IQ of frozen yogurt....do some research!

[SKEP + 229]

On 8/7/2019 at 8:46 PM, Zhong Lu said:

No, I'm pretty sure China at this point won't come to an agreement.  At least not with the current administration.  

"We'll just wait you out. If there's some economic pain, then so be it."

So: what next? 

China waits out Trump at their own peril.

That's fine by me.  Tariffs doing a job on China's economy.

China will have to wait out a probable increase to new 10% tariff to maybe 15% , 20% or , 25% .

China will have to wait out ban on technology sales to Huawei and other companies that provide surveillance software to Chinese Communist Party. (Hunter Biden investment in one of those companies)

Huawei said they have replacement operating system for Android, LOL, good luck with that.

You will start to hear more about Google's work with China's military re their AI Software. New Chinese laws require any technology in their country must be shared with People's Liberation Army.  These large tech companies are no longer US corporations.  They are multinational "soldiers of Fortune"

Edited August 12, 2019 by SKEP

[SKEP + 229]

.

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by SKEP

[SKEP + 229]

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Of course, that wrench is a piece of junk and likely is not 7/8 of an inch between the jaws!

The fact is that the Chinese manufacture junk. Yes, things like these wrenches sell to folks who just have the odd job around the house, but real tradesmen or craftsmen will not touch Chinese tools and equipment.

Out in the drilling arena I cannot tell you how many times my clients decided to 'go cheap' with Chinese equipment only to have it fail in weeks.

There is little real QA/QC in China. I was forced to have a drilling spool manufactured in China. I used a third party Chinese inspector to confirn that it was fit for purpose. When it arrived in Kurdistan it was riddled with radial cracks - useless.

You order two identical mud pumps from China...you cannot interchange parts due to shoddy machining...and on and on.

China sells by artificially lowering the cost/dumping. They can do this due to low cost, low skilled labor. As China develops a middle class, they will demand higher wages, time off, pension plans, etc... and this advantage will disappear.

The Chinese economy is a house of cards.

I hope China's economy is a house of cards.  Trump tariffs will be the beginning of the end to Chinese Hegemony.

As for Chinese quality . . . They mfg to spec. If one contracts for shoddy specification that's what you get.

Chinese shale companies wanted to order pressure pumps from the leading US mfg to work the deep shale oil reserves.  U.S. denied thinking China would steal technology.  China built their own, a much better product and now sell them in the US to the very same mfg that denied them.

Edited August 11, 2019 by SKEP

[Zhong Lu + 845]

11 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Now imagine you're a Chinese citizen, bought land with every cent of your savings and all you could borrow from friends and relatives. Then the communist party comes along and simply takes it -all. 

Actually this happens a lot more in Russia than China.  The irony is that China today is a lot more "Republican" and "capitalist" than the US.  Almost no regulation, and the capitalism there is free for all.  Many Republicans want America to have a capitalist system more like China.  

Americans are complaining because they're being out-competed.  There's too many people in China, so many of them are willing to work for no health care or benefits and $5/hour.  

Edited August 11, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

On 8/10/2019 at 6:37 AM, Zhong Lu said:

unlike Trump or the Democrats (who appear incapable of doing much of anything at all- instead they spend most of their time and energy shitting on one another- which as a libertarian I think is great).

I have noticed that the US does better when Congress does less.

On the other hand, I see Trump's administration working to roll back past Big Things that backfired horribly, and there's been some success.  Hopefully we'll get another four years of him so that can continue. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

On 8/10/2019 at 1:48 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

1. Please give us some examples of his lies.

2. Please show conclusively that Trump has had extra-marital affairs and mistresses.

3. Did Trump dodge the draft or was he legally excused? 

4. Did Trump 'hide' his taxable earnings or did he take advantage of legally existing loopholes?

Just as a matter of interest, what is the average number of mistresses and extra-marital affairs for you average high level Communist member?

1) Oh come on, there are full websites devoted to lists of his lies.  Look them up, you don't have to believe all the reports, but there are plenty to choose from! 

2) He paid out money to silence them, evidence enough.

3) No comment

4) Probably not illegal, just bad tax laws.  Only "hiding" the fact he has good accountants, because it looks bad to be rich and not contribute to your country.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

6 hours ago, Zhong Lu said:

 

Americans are complaining because they're being out-competed. 

Correct

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

9 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Of course, that wrench is a piece of junk and likely is not 7/8 of an inch between the jaws!

The fact is that the Chinese manufacture junk. Yes, things like these wrenches sell to folks who just have the odd job around the house, but real tradesmen or craftsmen will not touch Chinese tools and equipment.

Out in the drilling arena I cannot tell you how many times my clients decided to 'go cheap' with Chinese equipment only to have it fail in weeks.

There is little real QA/QC in China. I was forced to have a drilling spool manufactured in China. I used a third party Chinese inspector to confirn that it was fit for purpose. When it arrived in Kurdistan it was riddled with radial cracks - useless.

You order two identical mud pumps from China...you cannot interchange parts due to shoddy machining...and on and on.

China sells by artificially lowering the cost/dumping. They can do this due to low cost, low skilled labor. As China develops a middle class, they will demand higher wages, time off, pension plans, etc... and this advantage will disappear.

The Chinese economy is a house of cards.

I imagine there are at least two tiers of Chinese products.  Crap they mass produce and export, and other higher quality stuff.

They have spacecraft, I'm sure they can make a wrench.  Probably using the superior metric system! Luddites use inches.

[Zhong Lu + 845]

3 hours ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

I have noticed that the US does better when Congress does less.

On the other hand, I see Trump's administration working to roll back past Big Things that backfired horribly, and there's been some success.  Hopefully we'll get another four years of him so that can continue. 

Not really.  Trump is growing the deficit and the government.  Note what happened in the first 2 years before Dems won the house.  The only reason the government and deficit hasn't exploded under Trump's watch is because the government is divided and Dems and Trump can't work together.

This reason is why I support extreme partisanship and general shittiness.  I want both sides to lose, too busy insulting one another, so nothing is accomplished, in an endless realm of libeterian gridlock.    

Edited August 11, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Jakridge + 122]

1 hour ago, Zhong Lu said:

This reason is why I support extreme partisanship and general shittiness.  I want both sides to lose, too busy insulting one another, so nothing is accomplished, in an endless realm of libeterian gridlock.    

Thats pretty much the same thing Ben said.  Government gets in the way, especially fascist, communistic, and totalitarian ones, but even the US government gets in the way because people want power and money and usually don't mind taking it by force from others. Look, it is obvious that you and Dimitri and Tomas and several others on this thread are quite anti-American and that's fine as I am an American and respect your freedom, but let me ask you this, why is our country so successful and why have we lifted more people out of poverty into the middle class than any other country in the history of the world? Why is it that people risk their lives to come into this country illegally every day by the hundreds and thousands? What is it about the United States of America that makes us a desired place to come instead of flee from? I don't see people sneaking in the borders of China (unless from North Korea) or Russia to lift themselves out of poverty. Why do they do that to our country?

[Zhong Lu + 845]

I'm libertarian, not anti-American.  Since neither party is libertarian, the only way to see your libertarian goals met is through endless gridlock.  

Edited August 12, 2019 by Zhong Lu

[Jakridge + 122]

42 minutes ago, Zhong Lu said:

I'm libertarian, not anti-American.  Since neither party is libertarian, the only way to see your libertarian goals met is through endless gridlock.  

Libertarianism (from Latin: libertas, meaning "freedom") is a collection of political philosophies and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association and individual judgment.

 

 I'm sorry Mr. Lu but based on your past posts in support of the Chinese government and in animus of the United States I'm afraid your philosophy does not seem to fit under the definition of libertarianism.

[Zhong Lu + 845]

When have I posted anything in support of the Chinese government? 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

6 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

I imagine there are at least two tiers of Chinese products.  Crap they mass produce and export, and other higher quality stuff.

They have spacecraft, I'm sure they can make a wrench.  Probably using the superior metric system! Luddites use inches.

Do you have to work at being an ass, or does it come naturally?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

6 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

I imagine there are at least two tiers of Chinese products.  Crap they mass produce and export, and other higher quality stuff.

They have spacecraft, I'm sure they can make a wrench.  Probably using the superior metric system! Luddites use inches.

If all they export if the 'junk' tier, and that is all that the rest of the world sees, then from an international trade standpoint then the Chinese only appear to manufacture junk!

Whatever they manufacture and use internally is irrelevant to the international community.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

24 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Do you have to work at being an ass, or does it come naturally?

In my writing it comes naturally; in speech I have to work at it.

 

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

6 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

1) Oh come on, there are full websites devoted to lists of his lies.  Look them up, you don't have to believe all the reports, but there are plenty to choose from! 

2) He paid out money to silence them, evidence enough.

3) No comment

4) Probably not illegal, just bad tax laws.  Only "hiding" the fact he has good accountants, because it looks bad to be rich and not contribute to your country.

I can give you hundreds on Obama https://docs.google.com/document/d/11axnqv_b3L2k9CD6HWNMwrdIECJZSxowxjO4RIc-rbE/edit

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 8/10/2019 at 12:43 PM, Zhong Lu said:

China's economy, trade war or otherwise, will grow.  Unlike Russia. 

That is unlikely.  

To understand the instability of the currently-structured Chinese economy, note that it has been pushed to extraordinary lengths by what is generally referred to as "infrastructure spending."  Fully 25% of the Chinese-calculated GNP is the pouring of concrete.  The purpose of that construction is not to build something useful today for benefit today; it is to absorb human capital, the millions of otherwise unemployed.  Some of that work has some immediate benefit, such as the construction of new train routes into the vast hinter and and up into the Tibet Plateau.  Other projects with immediate benefit include the network of waterway canals, intended as aqueducts, to move stupendous amounts of water from the rivers of the South up to the parched North.  Still other projects include massive port improvements, dredgings, containership piers, airports, and haulage roads. 

One biggie has been the building of entire cities, with vast numbers of streets, high-rise apartment buildings (where the apartments are sold), and shopping malls - all empty of people.  You can have a city of 500,000 and there is nobody home.  Who built all that?  And why?  It baffles the outsider.  But one large purpose of that construction is to absorb resources and push up the growth. The Chinese are not alone in that folly; in Spain, a vast new airport was built a hundred miles South of Madrid, for billions, and the total number of flights scheduled when opened up was - zero.  

None of that "infrastructure spending" in China brings in any real return, other than the port spending.  The canals and the railroads will incrementally contribute, but not proportionate to the money spent. So the real engine of growth to prosperity is exports, to the wealthy countries, and of those, the prize is the USA.  Remember that the US market comprises fully 25% of the planet GNP, so if you cannot play in that vast US sandbox you are shut out and shut down.  China absolutely need access to that market in order to absorb the flood of goods it has capacity to manufacture in all those new factories with those hundred of millions of workers.  Who else can absorb that?  Australia?  No chance; not enough people.  India?  No chance; the place is awash in poverty, 500 million people who poop at the side of the street don't have the money to buy any serious quantity of Chinese product.  Europe?  No chance; Europe with its aging and declining population has at best already reached saturation and volumes will stagnate there for decades.  Africa?  No money.  Argentina?  Peru?  Not enough consumers and not enough money.  

If you have displaced factory employees with no output for the goods, a situation that will face China if quotas are imposed, then that economy starts to come apart at the seams.  It handles tariffs by forced imposition of effective wage taxes by reduction of purchasing power, done by letting the currency devalue.  The Chinese worker then ends up with a little less pork and a little less chicken in his diet, and less protein and more rice for carbohydrates,  because the Chinese leadership, to save face, shuts down purchases of US and Canadian soybeans, pork and beef cattle.  The Chinese worker takes a decrease in his standard of living.  Can that go on indefinitely?  No.  And the reason is that, additional to lowered food intake, millions of Chinese factory workers will end up laid off.  That unemployment will create its own social unrest, and China is too unstable to handle it.  So no, the Chinese economy will stop growing, will shrink, will become unstable, and will develop internal fissures, that repression will not be able to oppress.  That is the price of running afoul of US patience with trade dumping. 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

Actually, no.  For thousands of years, the dream  of almost everyone was to have a house of their own.  Unfortunately, homes were expensive to build in the past so the vast majority of the population were migrants or servants.  Even farmers had to move frequently in response to the threat of droughts or starvation. 

So when Deng liberalized the economy, EVERYONE wanted houses.  Hence the construction boom.  The purpose of construction is NOT because of "finding a place to send resources."  People constructed houses because they wanted houses.  Also, the canals and roads and railroads have brought a tremendous increase in standards of living over the past 20+ years because they allow the free flow of goods from one end of China to the next.  Thanks to these canals, roads, highways, and airports, China is the leader in internet business (which is all about quick transportation of goods).  

The exports are a byproduct of the economic boom, primarily useful for bringing in foreign currency, to fuel further internal expansion.  China has 20% of the world's population and is the size of a continent.  The goal of the current government is to build up an internal market large enough that they don't need the US to trade with.  

Trump is merely accelerating the process.  Within a generation, China's major external trading partner will be Africa.  In China's eyes, the US market is increasingly irrelevant.  So this trade war really doesn't matter much to China, except some short-term pain, which the Communist Party can easily ride through thanks to the huge amount of legitimacy it has thanks to Deng's original reforms.  

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 minute ago, Zhong Lu said:

Actually, no.  For thousands of years, the dream  of almost everyone was to have a house of their own.  Unfortunately, homes were expensive to build in the past so the vast majority of the population were migrants or servants.  Even farmers had to move frequently in response to the threat of droughts or starvation. 

So when Deng liberalized the economy, EVERYONE wanted houses.  Hence the construction boom.  The purpose of construction is NOT because of "finding a place to send resources."  People constructed houses because they wanted houses.  Also, the canals and roads and railroads have brought a tremendous increase in standards of living over the past 20+ years because they allow the free flow of goods from one end of China to the next.  Thanks to these canals, roads, highways, and airports, China is the leader in internet business (which is all about quick transportation of goods).  

The exports are a byproduct of the economic boom, primarily useful for bringing in foreign currency, to fuel further internal expansion.  China has 20% of the world's population and is the size of a continent.  The goal of the current government is to build up an internal market large enough that they don't need the US to trade with.  

Trump is merely accelerating the process.  Within a generation, China's major external trading partner will be Africa.  In China's eyes, the US market is increasingly irrelevant.  So this trade war really doesn't matter much to China, except some short-term pain, which the Communist Party can easily ride through thanks to the huge amount of legitimacy it has thanks to Deng's original reforms.  

I don't agree, but upvoting your comment because it is well argued and well presented.

[Zhong Lu + 845]

Alright.  So what don't you agree with? 

[J.mo + 165]

6 minutes ago, Zhong Lu said:

Alright.  So what don't you agree with? 

I dont know about the United states economy being irrelevant to china. Damn near everything I buy is made in China these days. I'm a 30 year old middle class Male. I'm sure my habits and attributes represent a fairly decent chunk of Americans..

[Zhong Lu + 845]

The US has 250 million people.  China has 1.2 billion people.  Compared to China's internal market, the US is auxiliary.  It might not feel like that to Americans flooded with cheap Chinese goods, but the vast majority of Chinese goods produced nowadays are for internal consumption.   They export to the US as a source of extra income.  

The US was necessary for a source of foreign currency.  But now thanks to the Treasuries China has accumulated, that's not a problem anymore.  Losing access to the US market will hurt, but the US overestimate their market's importance.  

Edited August 12, 2019 by Zhong Lu